Category: Sunday sketch
Sunday sketch #199
So while playing around with the double-HRT block from Sunday sketch #198, I noticed a shape that I quite liked: two triangles back to back, creating a parallelogram. I wanted to set that in a larger rectangle and extend the line between the triangles to the corners of the block. It didn’t take long to use paper and EQ8 to create what I had in mind.
I originally designed the block in a landscape orientation, then decided I liked how this looked vertical – almost architectural. Like windows on a skyscraper, with the sun angled down, creating shadows.
The secondary lines that arise from this layout present loads of opportunities for colour play. I created a bunch of related designs in EQ8 just by rotating the blocks and colouring them slightly differently. Watch out for a few more in the coming weeks.
To make this design into a quilt pattern, it would probably be best to use paper piecing to ensure that you got the angles right. I’m going to add this one to the (long) list of designs I’d really like to try making one of these days.
Sunday sketch #198
I briefly sat down with my sketchbook the other day, drew one simple block, then immediately started up EQ8 to tile it and recolour it. I toyed around with placement too, setting the blocks on point, rotating some of them, and using the inverse colourway on others. I picked a lovely emerald-y green for the two-colour version.
Can you tell what the original block was? If you tilt your head 45 degrees, you might be able to see a few squares emerge from this design. And you can see that they’re made up of two 2:1 half-rectangle triangles (which are twice as high as they are wide). The two diagonal seams of the HRTs are parallel, and the HRTs are coloured so the middle of the block looks like a tilted stripe, with the two coloured triangles on the outside.
Messing with the orientation of the blocks introduces some lovely secondary shapes and lines. Of course, I opted for a symmetrical design!
This design could be translated into a quilt using all HRTs and a few squares of background fabric.
Sunday sketch #197
A super-simple retro design this week. Some lazy lines going this way and that. Kinda how my brain feels at the moment.
I actually tried the design going vertically first, before changing it to horizontal. But now I like them both.
They remind me a bit of mathematical functions. (I’m a former scientist.) Or curly brackets in punctuation. (Now I’m an editor!) But also the retro curvy curtains we had in the living room, growing up in suburban Melbourne. (Can you tell I’m a 70s kid?!).
This is all drunkard’s path blocks and a bunch of rectangles. And the drunkard’s paths are 6 of each kind, so would come together very quickly. Chain-piecing marathon, anyone? Well, more like a sprint really!
